Business Continuity Disaster Recovery and Emergency Response
Emergency Response
Most businesses have experienced the need for emergency response in some capacity. For the minority that have not, the question has become not if, but when the need will arise. More than ever, the current environment in which businesses find themselves operating necessitates the adoption of an institutionalized and comprehensive approach to emergency response planning to protect corporate assets. Mitigation, preparedness, and recovery are critical phases of the emergency management process (Khan et al., 2018). To effectively manage a crisis, it is important to examine the underlying concepts of emergency response.
A comprehensive emergency response plan ensures that emergent events are addressed quickly and allows for the timely implementation of established protocols in regard to resolution, recovery, and restoration of business operations. A business should have a designated emergency response team that is properly trained and familiar with the emergency plan strategy, as well as their respective roles in the process. While higher level officials in the organization should be responsible for activating an emergency plan, it is important that all employees and management are involved with the associated planning and training. This exposure increases familiarization and accountability throughout the business as a whole.
The response to any emergency is crucial, as it ensures that the situation is controlled, recovery and restoration paths are established, and the emergency is addressed in a timely manner. The creation of a properly trained emergency response team with a defined communication plan helps all parties to understand the emergency and their respective role in the process. The development of the communication plan should include employees and management at all levels in every functional area of the organization so the team feels ownership of the process and will be more likely to support implementation when responding to the emergency. It is also important to note that while response is coordinated throughout the organization, the formal declaration of a disaster or emergency should come from the executive management level in the organization.
Defining roles and responsibilities before an incident takes place is of paramount importance. One individual cannot assume responsibility for an entire large organization. In some municipalities an Incident Manager might be responsible for deciding the resources needed to address an incident, while a sperate logistics officer might arrange for the resources needed, and a communications officer would speak to the media and public. These distinct roles can vary but need to be tested to ensure each role has the capacity and training needed to effectively manage an incident.
An organizational risk assessment will help identify the types of emergencies that may be encountered and their predicted effect on the organization. Emergency response activities can then be identified that will help alleviate the most impactful of those effects. The emergency response aims to help reduce the impact a disaster may cause (Khan et al., 2018). If there is no risk assessment undertaken, it is hard to determine that realistic scenarios for emergencies have been considered. While the safety of people should always come first in any emergency response exercise, there is also a need assess the risk to physical property, the environment and intellectual property (IP). The risk assessment should find vulnerabilities and weaknesses that would create adverse impacts, and particularly those that are disproportionate to the magnitude of the emergency. Exposures could include building system deficiencies, gaps in security systems, and inadequate loss prevention programs. The risk assessment also evaluates the likelihood and the impact of a given threat or emergency, allowing the prioritization of response techniques or program enhancements.
Some large public entities establish a risk severity matrix as part of their emergency response plan. While all emergencies require a plan, training, and budget, not all are equally severe. Some organizations have four categories of incident that trigger differing responses, from Level One Minor Incident with no imminent threat to public safety or the environment, to Level Four Severe Incident with imminent threat to public safety. The elements that trigger which level of response is required can vary, but who categorizes the Incident is well established.
Risk assessments should be updated when a shift in business operations take place. A good example is the COVID-19 work from home shift, where VPN is now used by employees to access the server of organizations and remote meetings and file sharing have become the norm. Under this circumstance an IT risk assessment would be enacted to seek out vulnerabilities.
It is critical to track and be accountable in the manner activities are done regarding emergency response. The inclusion of performance indicators helps provide feedback to the organization on the effectiveness of the emergency response plan.
Installation of building systems that can help detect and respond to unforeseen hazards can help assist in emergency response situations by helping to limit the impact that risk would cause. It is critical to note that emergency response activities work in concert with other hazard prevention and handling techniques. Moreover, there is a need for a management system that recognizes information relay that would help manage hazards that happened.
One element often overlooked is budgeting for emergency preparedness. Having a budget to account for periodic training, plan reassessment, and emergency simulations quarterly or bi-annually is imperative to ensure effective response.
Business Continuity
After a disaster, an organizations' ability to maintain normal function depends on its ability to mitigate the impacts of the hazard, a concept referred to as business continuity. Business continuity planning should be informed by the risk assessment procedure, communication protocols, and other management activities intended to minimize interruptions in the organizational mission. The aim of the business continuity plan is therefore to re-establish critical operations as quickly as possible and revert back to normal operations in the future.
A continual process of business continuity development, review, and enhancement should be part of any organization's core values due to the unpredictable nature and ever-changing threat landscape. However, unforeseen situations may occur (such as a global pandemic) making it hard to implement a plan that keeps the activities and functions of an organization operational as before (Fani & Subriadi, 2019). A comprehensive business continuity plan therefore considers various unpredictable factors.
Cyberattacks have become increasingly established as external threats that could negatively impact business operations. It is prudent that companies adopt secure cybersecurity measures that will prevent cases of unauthorized access of information and loss of data. Preventive security controls and user education are two key components that can help deter a cyberattack. If a cyber attack takes place users need to know how to quickly respond and use their incident response plan. The cyber incident response plan should include details related to identifying the incident, prioritizing response activities, isolating the affected components, recovery, follow-up and documentation of lessons learned. Historically this process has been difficult for many organizations, resulting in a delay in resuming normal operations.
The COVID pandemic has complicated the implementation of business continuity plans for many organizations. For example, some organizations may not have the required manpower to implement business plans due to staff reductions and shifted priorities. As a result, the continuity plan must consider prioritizing essential tasks over others for these circumstances where not all aspects of the plan can be carried out. In this way, impacts to the organization can be minimized. It is prudent to note that setting up a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) requires significant finance and human resource allocation that not all companies may possess.
The plan should also consider the funding required to implement various tasks, so those funds can be made readily available in a disaster scenario. Failover mechanisms can be decided upon by the organization administration once all the necessary components have been identified. The organizations can employ technology that helps maintain up-to-date copies of data over dispersed geographical locations. It would help in diversifying data storage and technology service providers. The move would help an organization run effectively with all its information intact even after encountering a disaster. Data access can continue uninterrupted even when a disaster has shut down one location.
It is essential to have a business continuation plan in place that considers all possible scenarios that could happen to an organization. Having a well-laid down program on approaching the occurrence is a good move that would help guarantee continuity even amid a disaster (Fani & Subriadi, 2019). The plan should help the firm have some degree of resiliency and respond with urgency to emergencies. Utilization of a business continuity plan helps minimize the financial and operational burden on the organization, while in many cases assisting the company in maintaining its public reputation and brand.
Disaster Recovery
Disaster recovery involves responding to the impacts of an emergency once it occurs. Natural events occur at a cost, and there has to be a plan to recover from the impact on everyday operations (Kadam, 2017). Disasters and disruptions can lead to lost revenue to the organization and brand damage. It is understandable that once the company brand has been jeopardized, it is hard to redeem it to its usual position. Everyone is familiar with the Florida water facilitates security breach by now. Marriott suffered a breach recently as well. The implication may lead to dissatisfaction among customers who expect better services from the organization.
Disaster recovery focuses on following a recovery plan to bring production back to the usual functionality. A good plan should guarantee a rapid recovery from disruptions of any kind. It also investigates all the aspects of operation disruption from natural and human-made interruptions and seeks to handle them. The implication that facilities can have if they have no disaster recovery plan is that there would be no means of continuity. Additionally, the organization will have lost customer loyalty.
Organizations must prioritize coming up with structures that would help in recovery mode even before its occurrence. Making contingency plans on how to deal with disasters is critical for any organization wishing to continue its operations after any type of disaster (e.g. Tornado, pandemic, terrorism). It is essential to understand that disaster recovery is vital in all planning and assessment processes. To guarantee effectiveness, there is a need to create a functional recovery team that can assess the disaster risks that are anticipated. There is also criticality to ensure critical applications and documentation are available. A backup plan must be established and specified to the teams involved. The plan should be able to work to ensure that there is normalcy even after the occurrence of a disaster.
Therefore, it is essential to ensure that there are better plans in place on how to deal with problems associated with natural calamities or even man-made events that may disrupt normal functioning. Organizational planning and aligning of resources in readiness to handle such issues is paramount. Disaster recovery budgetary allocation should be considered to help hasten the manner in which response is delivered to the organization.